this is eyy i'm walkin here, a newsletter about nature (mainly birds), cities (mainly new york), and the intersection between the two.
humans used to settle in places because there were valuable resources—food, clean water, a comfortable climate, access to rivers and the ocean for transportation, things like that. the places we chose were often valuable to lots of wildlife for the same reasons that we liked them. but in modern times, we’ve outsourced a lot of the things we originally relied on the land for, and instead of preserve these biodiverse places where we live, we’ve turned them into vast tracts of concrete and trash. that outsourcing also means that we move ourselves and goods around the world—bringing new plants and animals with us wherever we go.
but that doesn’t change the fact that cities are still habitat. focusing just on new york, fish still migrate up and down our rivers to spawn, birds still stop by during their migration to refuel, plants still grow wherever they can take root, and insects still pollinate those plants. but now, all of these creatures have human-induced threats the likes of which they’ve never seen before.
and the changes we make in our cities aren’t isolated—political boundaries are made up, and only humans see them. an insect can lay eggs in a plank of wood in china which hatch in the united states, decimating a native tree population. an aggressive vine can escape a nursery and travel along roadsides into the forest, outcompeting the competition and reducing overall biodiversity. enough animals dying in city-related incidents can reduce the success of the species overall.
i’m not an expert in any of this stuff, but i’m from new york and i like looking at plants and animals. the plants and animals that i look at in nyc all carry stories written in part by people. and when i leave the city, those are often the stories i’m most interested in. so, this newsletter is about those stories that i notice when i’m walking around. the lack of capitalization might annoy people but it’s meant to be symbolic, that this isn’t rigorous academic writing—this is me talking to my computer screen.
i turned off comments and likes because they’re stressful for me, but you can always respond to me via email if you really liked or hated something i wrote. i turned paid subscriptions on if you want to pay me because i love money but there won’t be any additional content behind the paywall, for now at least.
thanks for reading :^)
